San Francisco Set to Ban Unsolicited Phone Books
good.is
good.is
I know somebody pays for them, but people pay for their fast food wrappers, too, and they aren't allowed to leave them on other people's porches. I paid for the beer in my fridge, but I'm not going to leave a bag of empties hanging from my neighbor's doorknob.
I really don't know how the legal exception works, how the law distinguishes one act of spewing worthless crap into the environment from another, but it should be possible to cut down on the constant flyers under wiper blades, takeout menus on doorknobs, etc., and still let people put up posters about lost pets, local missing persons, and neighborhood garage sales.
I figure: if somebody cares enough about sending me a slip of paper, they will either send it Fed Ex, or they will email it to me; nobody uses the postal system for anything other than trash.
In fact, I wonder what the legality of literally mailing garbage is. USPS flat-rate boxes are something like $5, and I could fit a lot of apple cores, orange peels, and coffee grounds into one of those things. In fact, my sister is soon due to have a kid. I'd pay to have her mail the dirty diapers to whoever keeps sending me paper spam.
That this is an accepted abuse of the postal system is absurd.
It seems to indicate that unless it's for a medical reason (and labelled accordingly?) you're not allowed to send human or animal feces, so the diaper idea is out.
Other garbage would depend on the risk of the actual garbage. Empty containers and so on is likely to be fine. Rotting organic material could be iffy.
After 20 minutes I finally remembered "oh, that's what those yellow books are for". It's just how infrequently we've cracked open a phone book - which is to say never since 1993. I can tell you, for anyone in their 20's, that phone book goes straight from the doorstep to the dustbin, just like the paper newspaper. Good riddance!
So companies can impose costs upon you. You have to be responsible and see the garbage to its rightful place. And deal with garbage all over the urban landscape.
But if we changed this and required companies to ask first, this would supposedly be too costly for them. But only because we've been forced to subsidize their activities all along.
There was a story about this on NPR today, and they compared Seattle's approach to San Francisco's. The SF approach is drawing a lot of opposition from advocates and aid groups from the poor and the elderly. The fear is that there are a lot of people who do not use online directories and depend on their phone books to look up numbers.
In general, when you have some service that at one point nearly everyone depends on, and then as time passes many people start needing less and less, it seems to me to make the most sense to switch it to an opt-out service for existing people so that you don't disrupt those who still depend on it, and make it opt-in for new people.
Why? Two main reasons. One is for actually looking up local telephone numbers. I prefer this to looking them up on the Web in many cases: the paper book doesn't call home, the business directory is harder to game, and it's all pre-localized. And it doesn't take away the choice of looking things up on the Web if I feel it's necessary, at the cost of some extra traceability &c.
The second reason is that I use extras as structural supports. Monitor too low (for instance)? Wrap phone book in duct tape. Now it's a brick. Construct environmental modifications out of phone bricks. They're relatively light while being solid, and they're already bound together, so you don't have the trouble of trying to make the rectilinear shape ex nihilo. I suppose I could buy stacks of newsprint paper or something, but going out and buying things is awkward, and phone books are often distributed free, so I'm only paying for time and duct tape.
When's the last time you looked up a number in the phone book? For us, it was probably around 1999.
That said, I don't know that I need an updated book every single year.
A few years back I was on the board of my HOA (77 unit loft structure in downtown San Diego) and this was an issue that came up every quarter. We repeatedly asked for them to stop doing it - that it was wasteful, that it was unwanted solicitation against our CC&Rs, didn't matter. The phone company left 77 phone books in our lobby every time. Within the same day we had maintenance dump the whole lot in the recycling bin.
The main issue is that the recipients of the books aren't the clients, the advertisers are. That this is unwanted activity makes no difference to them. As long as they can claim to deliver a phone book, they can use that as a statistic for advertisers. If you want to stop this activity one tactic might be to alert major advertisers.
Sticking those things under my wiper is like saying "here you throw this away"[1].
[1] credit to Mitch Hedberg
Here's a similar situation in Texas in 2005: http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/federal-judge-texas-man-...
U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo ruled earlier this month that the law violates the Constitution because it gives state officials too much discretion in determining when to issue permits and prohibits religious exhibits. Castillo also faulted the law for banning people who want to distribute leaflets from approaching the public without providing an exception in cases where people consent to being approached.
“The judge reaffirmed the First Amendment principles and showed that the First Amendment rights are valued in Chicago,” said Elizabeth Murray, whose client Kevin Cantrell filed the lawsuit in April 2004 against officials at the Thompson Center and the state Department of Central Management Services. The center is the state's main government building in Chicago.
“This also protects more than just religious leafletters. It protects all who want to leaflet, so it is of great value to the citizens of Illinois,” said Murray, an attorney for the Alliance Defense Fund, which represented Cantrell.
Nobody's saying they can't print the books, they just can't dump their spam garbage on my stoop like they do every four months.
I'm don't disagree with the law, I actually support it, but I think it's very likely it will ultimately be repealed.
I'd arguably be more upset about this due to the complete waste of resources and generation of additional litter.
(edit, as someone else has noted, there appears to be an opt-out. I'd have to say I'd argue in favor of letting them then. )
But as a society, I think an opt-out is a poor thing to encourage. If the behaviour is not acceptable, why should people have to opt-out, instead of opting in?
What's the difference between a phone book and a similarly sized brick with "Jesus loves you -- call us to find out more" on it? Can I go around leaving bricks all over the place under the guise of free speech?
This may be the one sticking point they have around it. However, I wonder how this is any different than junk mail? Junk mail just pays the Post Office, how is that better/worse than paying an employee to pass out the flyer/phonebook/etc?
I think this is an interesting case and I'm looking forward to the outcome.
*Document meaning any letter, junk mail, leaflet, flyer, or phonebook.
I know more about private property in regards to the 4th Amendment, but in those situations anything that is accessible to the public, like a walkway to your front door, driveway, etc those are all legally permissible areas for a police officer to be, even though they haven't been invited onto your property. I'd imagine they'd make a similar argument that you can't have a part of your property open to the public but then only restrict people passing out phonebooks/flyers/etc.